Marsters Embarrassed by Dragonball Evolution Now

[ABED]

Umm.. yes, I'de say greed did have something to do with it since in the interview he mentions the promised budget was more than halved meaning the people in charge wanted to save money.

You gotta spend money to make money.
This isn't milking anything. It's a case of neglect. They didn't care, it wasn't about the money.
I don't know if DB ever really was promised to be 120 million. You don't slash a budget by one fourth if you believe in it.

[Sin]

Umm.. yes, I'de say greed did have something to do with it since in the interview he mentions the promised budget was more than halved meaning the people in charge wanted to save money.

You gotta spend money to make money.
This isn't milking anything. It's a case of neglect. They didn't care, it wasn't about the money.
I don't know if DB ever really was promised to be 120 million. You don't slash a budget by one fourth if you believe in it.

Justin Chatwin also mentioned the same 120m figure in this interview, I guess I'm not so sure either though, is there anywhere which states the actual budget? I'm reading 30m on wikipedia, and 45m from some other sources.

[UpFromTheSkies]

If Stephen Chow would have been directly involved, it would have been a great movie, and would have probably turned into a trilogy. If a studio ever takes another shot at it, I hope they put him at the helm.

[IAmTheMilkMan]

It surprises me how many people want to see Dragon Ball in a live-action form. It seems like such a ridiculous idea to me and I can't see it ever working. Dragon Ball is very much a cartoon, and there is no way that I would ever want to see Goku, Vegeta, or any other character portrayed by an actor or actress. No amount of talent is capable of successfully translating Dragon Ball into a live-action setting; no matter what the end result may be, good or bad, it just wouldn't be Dragon Ball. What is possible is creating a film with similar fights and energy-type blasts, which I'm assuming is the only thing people really want to see when they mention live-action Dragon Ball, even if they don't necessarily know it.

[Fulicer]

It surprises me how many people want to see Dragon Ball in a live-action form. It seems like such a ridiculous idea to me and I can't see it ever working. Dragon Ball is very much a cartoon, and there is no way that I would ever want to see Goku, Vegeta, or any other character portrayed by an actor or actress. No amount of talent is capable of successfully translating Dragon Ball into a live-action setting; no matter what the end result may be, good or bad, it just wouldn't be Dragon Ball. What is possible is creating a film with similar fights and energy-type blasts, which I'm assuming is the only thing people really want to see when they mention live-action Dragon Ball, even if they don't necessarily know it.

While making a live-action version of DB seems a bit far-fetched because it's an anime (and manga) and meant for kids, look at what they have done with the different Marvel and DC franchises. Quite a few good films there, among the embarrassing ones.

Anyway...while a live-action film would seem nice, I don't think they would adapt it in a way that wouldn't involve some kind of dumbing down.

[Blade]

He might be embarrassed by it, but at least he knows he gave the best performance in the film.

Biggest injustice is that Chatwin and Rossum are still working. And together.

Have you actually seen the television show you're talking about? It's one of the better ones on TV right now. Rossum's performance has certainly made me forget Dragonball Evolution even exists.

I've not seen a great deal of the American Shameless, I'm more familiar with the British version, but I guess the point I was trying to make is that it feels a little odd that they've gone on to work together after their limp chemistry in Dragonball Evolution, almost like they've been rewarded for it or came out of the whole debacle with merit.

It's a pretty cynical way of looking at it, I know, but as far as breakthroughs go, I feel kinda uneasy that DBE has somehow managed to serve as that for their career.

[ABED]

You can only have so much chemistry when you're given crap. I don't think they were rewarded for DBE, they simply made a bad movie together, which happens to the best of 'em.

[UpFromTheSkies]

It surprises me how many people want to see Dragon Ball in a live-action form. It seems like such a ridiculous idea to me and I can't see it ever working. Dragon Ball is very much a cartoon, and there is no way that I would ever want to see Goku, Vegeta, or any other character portrayed by an actor or actress. No amount of talent is capable of successfully translating Dragon Ball into a live-action setting; no matter what the end result may be, good or bad, it just wouldn't be Dragon Ball. What is possible is creating a film with similar fights and energy-type blasts, which I'm assuming is the only thing people really want to see when they mention live-action Dragon Ball, even if they don't necessarily know it.

Have you seen Journey To The West? After watching that, I'm convinced Stephen Chow could pull off a live adaption of the original Dragon Ball, if he were directly involved and didn't just have his name on it like he did with DBE.

[BlackCatScott]

He basically repeats the exact same thing about Dragonball whenever he's been asked about it over the last few years. I've lost count how many times I've heard him talk about how he got his son into Dragonball. He probably wants to do all he can to distance himself from that project now! I remember seeing a video where someone approached him at a convention and mentioned Dragonball Evolution and he just sort of cringed and his face seemed to say "Damn! You got me!". Haha.

Of all the poor decisions made during the making of that film, I wouldn't say the casting of James Marsters as Piccolo was one of them. He's a good actor and makes a pretty darn good Piccolo too. He just didn't have any good material to work with. I think he probably knew very early on that this wasn't what a Dragonball film should be. I feel sorry for Emmy Rossum as well, actually. I don't think she was necessarily a bad casting, just very poorly written.

[Michelle91]

I'm not surprise by this. Evolution was going to be bad ever since the casting info and script details where leak out sometime in 2007. Evolution is a bad movie, but I don't hate it as much as most fans do it. Unlike movies like Godzilla 1998, Star Wars Episode I or The Last Airbender, the movie had zero hype and nearly everyone I talked to, both fans (casual and hardcore) and non-fans said the movie looked awful. The movie also bombed at the box office, so I doubt we will see another DB movie for another 10 years at the earliest or maybe never at all. Making $57,497,699 worldwide is not enough since the movie had a budget around 35 or 40 million. Fox spend a good amount of money marketing the movie and most of the worldwide total came from China. Fox most likely got like 25% or 30% from China similar how most movie studios do from China.

Since Evolution bombed and no one hardly saw the movie outside the fan base, I think Evolution will become a cult movie like Super Mario Bros. did. People will be like "Did you know that there was a live action Dragon Ball movie".

[Cetra]

I think I really am one of like 10 people on earth who actually knows the whole Dragon Ball story and still likes the movie. I saw a lot similiarities and I cannot see a 1: 1 working adaption of Dragon Ball. There could have been a lot of good things to make it way better, that is for sure but Dragon Ball was destined to fail as a live-action movie anyway. It could have been loved by many, yes but there still are so many who would have hated it.

[UltimateHammerBro]

I disagree. I think I'm one of the few people who actually sort of liked the live action Super Mario Bros. movie, and I know it's kind of a cult movie, but I don't think that will happen to DBE too.

The SMB film was based on a videogame with little to no plot (at least at the time). They mostly took concepts and made a movie out of them, but there was no fixed storyline to follow (and it has many blink-and-miss-it cameos for the fans). It's not that bad if you think of it as an homage to the games and try to find those moments when you can connect both together.

DBE, on the other hand, is based on a manga series whose plot we all know, and it turned it upside down. It's not like there were decades of source material to choose from, like when adapting Spider-Man or the like: the manga and the anime have the same story, and it's really, really difficult to change. And we all know how it turned out. I think that will be what will keep it from achieving cult status.

That said, I think that if they had changed the Dragon Ball references, it would have been largely the same movie (except for different names, something else rather than 7 Dragon Balls, a villain who isn't green...) it may have worked on its own, as a forgettable blockbuster film.

[dbboxkaifan]

I think I really am one of like 10 people on earth who actually knows the whole Dragon Ball story and still likes the movie. I saw a lot similiarities and I cannot see a 1: 1 working adaption of Dragon Ball. There could have been a lot of good things to make it way better, that is for sure but Dragon Ball was destined to fail as a live-action movie anyway. It could have been loved by many, yes but there still are so many who would have hated it.

You're not the only one, while I didn't find DBE to be spectacular it was OK for the costumes, Marsters' Piccolo in live action and the grand finale, but the grand finale was a disappointment because it ended too quickly.

From so many things that others would find to hate about the film I usually end up with its ending.

[SSJ3_Zack]

I haven't watched Evolution in years. Not since it's premier on Sky Movies and that was like 2009. I might give it a re-watch at some point.

[Michelle91]

I can easily picture him as the adult, relatively serious, "Toei OVA" version of Goku. What's more, this guy can put a big friendly grin on his face like Goku often does.

In that version, Ray Park (Darth Maul from Star Wars, Toad from X-Men, etc.) was actually rumored as the actor who would play Vegeta.

I'm not saying that movie would be great or anything mind you, it's just a bit of morbid curiosity at what else we could have got.

I remember those rumors. At least Hugh Jackman can act unlike Justin Chatwin. James Marsters was the only actor who did a decent job in the movie, everyone else was awful. The rumor DBZ movie sounds better then anything we got. I remember the old DBZ casting rumors were:

Goku:

Brendan Fraser
Eric Bana
Hugh Jackman
Tom Welling (Smallville)

Piccolo:

Chirstopher Judge (Stargate SG-1)
Micheal Jai White (Spawn, The Dark Knight, Mortal Kombat: Legacy)
Wesley Snipes

Vegeta:

Ray Park
Jet Li

There's more, but I'm going with the ones that I remember off hand.

[ABED]

I remember at least one rumor was that Jessica Alba was considered for Bulma, and Roland Emmerich was going to direct the movie.

[Michelle91]

Roland Emmerich doing DBZ would be bad. Sure he can make fun pop corn flicks, but he is just as brainless as Micheal Bay. Stephen Chow being directly involved would have made the movie better. I think James Wong got hired since he's likely the only director in Hollywood that would want to direct a DB movie and Fox only did the movie just for the brand name alone. X-Men is the reason why Fox got the rights to the franchise along with the Fantastic Four, Daredevil and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in hope to start movie franchises because X-Men did very well at the box office back in 2000. DBZ was huge from 1996 - 2003, so making a movie out of it seem like a smart idea.

[SSJ3_Zack]

I think Guillermo del Toro could make a decent DragonBall film if they ever decided to have another go at making another live action film.

[Michelle91]

Yeah he would be a good choice. I think you need to be a good story teller and respect the source material enough to make a good movie. Being a fanboy won't be make the movie any better.

[Super Sonic]

Never heard too much on this, but my cousins' biggest complaint about the movie was anger that they made Goku a white guy. They didn't care about it with other movies like Spawn, Daredevil, Batman Begins and others were characters were played by actors of different ethnicity, but to them that was unforgivable with Goku.